I love a good upcycling project, so when I stumbled upon a pair of Louis XVI chairs on Ebay, I didn’t even draw breath before hitting the Buy Now button. Yes, they were ugly, but oh did they have potential! I was swooning with delight at my luck.
Little did I know it, but I had just been pulled into the vortex of a seedy underworld.
My chairs arrived, and aah...they were a thing of (potential) beauty. I began the hunt for a good upcycling company that could
FROM THIS...TO THIS: A SHOCKING TALE OF GREED, THEFT AND UPCYCLING
Safia A Naqvi | 8 Jan 2026
see my vision and restore them for me. Very quickly I found one about an hour from my home. After a brief exchange of emails, my husband and I set off to their workshop one fine Saturday morning.
The company turned out to be a husband and wife team. They had a reasonably big workshop with furniture in all stages of repair scattered about. We brought in our chairs, and their eyes lit up. I explained what I wanted for my interior design project, and showed them samples of the fabric they were to use for the upholstery. They said they’d order it in, and stain the chairs to my specification. All good! They asked for full payment up front, and said they’d email me a receipt. Some fine antenna at the back of my head started twitching, but I dismissed my reservations and we made the payment.
Of course, there is a reason why our sixth sense exists. I learned that the hard way when they stopped answering my emails and attending to my calls. Just as I had feared, no receipt came through from them. As an interior designer, you never expect to deal with criminals. My heart sinking, my husband and I made the trip down to their workshop, fearing the worst. And just as we thought, the workshop had a padlock on the gates. No sign of the husband and wife duo.
Like any upright, trusting citizen, I called the police, but as far as they were concerned, the crime wasn’t big enough to be worth their while. Wow! I’d had no idea that ordinary citizens (whose taxes paid the police’s salaries) and their problems were beneath the pay scale of officers. This adventure was really opening my eyes to the way this world works!
I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. Where was I to go from here? But, anyone who knows me, knows that resilience is my middle name. In the interior design profession, there is no lack of problems: the sofa that wont fit into the elevator; the part of a tap that has to come all the way from Timbuktu; the company you placed an order with that has just gone bust – every day is a new adventure when you’re an interior designer! A pair of thieves weren’t going to get the best of me.
I took a two-pronged approach. First, I left a message on their answering machine, and put the fear of God into them. I decided to appeal to their conscience (I believe every human being comes with one, even if many have put theirs to sleep). I told them that if they were happy to sell their souls and their afterlife for a couple of chairs, then that was their loss... all for a pair of chairs! Seriously – if you’re going to commit a crime, at least go big!
The second thing I did was some research online. There is a big upcycling community in the UK, and I assumed that its members tend to know each other, and their paths must cross at various upcycling events. Some might even pass on work to others. So I found someone who seemed to be very prominent in the world of upcycling. I sent him a heartfelt email, explaining my predicament and naming names. I shared the photo of my chairs and asked him to keep a look out in case the couple was selling anything similar.
And then I left the ball in God’s court.
Did I think I’d ever see my chairs again? I’m not sure. I’ve always been an optimist, and find it almost impossible to believe the worst. Hope is a hard beast to kill, after all.
I wish more people would believe in miracles. In a matter of a few days, I received a text from the crime duo, telling me my chairs were ready to be picked up. No mention of my countless ignored emails and messages, or the missing receipt; just a brief, sheepish text.
I was elated! My husband was dubious. As we got into the car, my sixth sense tingled yet again. What if they hadn’t used the fabric I’d asked them to? As a last minute precaution, I grabbed a beautiful, soft green suede I had in my stash. When we walked in to the workshop, the husband and wife could barely meet our eyes. She pretended to be busy on another item, while he just quietly pointed to our chairs. I could’ve hugged my sixth sense! One of the chairs was covered in a cheap, coarse burlap. With ice in my eyes and steel in my voice, I asked him to replace it with the material I’d brought with me. While my husband put the one good chair in the car, I decided to hover around them – aint no way I was leaving them alone with my chair again!
After a few long, awkward minutes where no one made a sound, he finally handed us the chair. I made a show of examining every inch of it, just in case he’d done a shoddy job. And then, without a word, we turned and left.
These chairs are my pride and joy, and after so many years, they still make my heart sing whenever I look at them. Like a mother who has a soft corner for the baby that came after a very difficult birth, I have a soft corner for these chairs that went through so much before they were finally restored.
If you have an old, tatty piece of furniture, rest assured that, once it is restored, you will love it more than anything you could have bought brand new. Pieces made with traditional, age-old techniques always stand the test of time, and can be passed down from generation to generation because the quality of the craftsmanship is top notch. If you’re planning a renovation, don’t throw out the old just yet! Show it to an interior designer, who should be able to spot its potential and advise you in the right direction.
